"Oh!
What was that hidden up the sleeve of his school sweatshirt?..."
The morning after Ben's thirteenth birthday, our Nameless Narrator finds something which changes their lives forever.
"Was it some sort of percussion instrument? What on earth was it?"
She balanced it on her palm, bewildered. She smelled it and it smelt like her uncle's pipe used to smell.
Is it her fault the third of her four sons has turned out the way he has? She thinks it probably is...
After all, her first marriage was on the rocks when Ben was conceived. She was already mother to twin boys. She didn't have Ben baptised. She didn't breastfeed him...
And our Nameless Narrator knows she drinks too much...